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Professor James Adams of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute declined to elaborate on his decision to sign the letter. "I'm not involved in the campaign," he said. "I simply read a statement and signed on."

Constantine Alexandrakis, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, expressed second thoughts about signing.

"I would describe myself as an Obama supporter," he explained. "Maybe I shouldn't have rushed into signing the letter."

In theory, economists support McCain
By: Alexander Burns and Avi Zenilman
July 9, 2008 10:47 AM

The endorsement could hardly have been stronger. On Monday, John McCain’s campaign released a statement signed by 300 economists who “enthusiastically support” his “Jobs for America” economic plan, providing a heavyweight testimonial to the presumptive Republican nominee’s “broad and powerful economic agenda.”

There’s just one problem. Upon closer inspection, it seems a good many of those economists don’t actually support the whole of McCain’s economic agenda. And at least one doesn’t even support McCain for president.

In interviews with more than a dozen of the signatories, Politico found that, far from embracing McCain’s economic plan, many were unfamiliar with — or downright opposed to — key details. While most of those contacted by Politico had warm feelings about McCain, many did not want to associate themselves too closely with his campaign and its policy prescriptions.

Howard Beales, an economist at George Washington University, explained that he signed the letter as "an expression of support for [McCain], not necessarily each and every detail of his plan, which I may not have had time to study closely."